Archive for January, 2005

Open Source is not a fantasy or a marginal practice. Very large, and very important software development projects have resulted from an open source process of production. The best known are Linux and Apache, but there are many others, and this is an expanding practice in the research world, in the hackers world, in the education world, in the institutional world and in the business world, including some large corporations, such as IBM. As of 2004, Linux is the operating system for more than a third of active web servers in the world, and it is the operating system for about 14% of the large server market. Apache largely dominates the web server market – with 65% of all active web sites running Apache. Sendmail, and many other popular programs, are also produced and distributed as Open Source. Open source introduces a new, cooperative form of production that transcends the traditional limits of the social division of labor built on hierarchies. Indeed, open source works as an open network of voluntary cooperation.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could actually find stuff on the Internet? Sure, Google is a wonderful tool for searching for some things — say the home page of a company, or how to make Battenberg cake. But more often than not, you’ll get way too many hits for what you’re looking for, and end up frustrated.

It isn’t surprising, really: Google is now indexing more than 8 billion Web pages, against 2 billion three years ago and 3 billion two years ago. That’s a lot of pages. As David Weinberger of Harvard University’s Berkman Center puts it: “We’ve been struggling for several years with the Internet’s size and complexity.” So is there a better way of finding stuff?

Jay wrote his reflection here. What’s also interesting is the power shift in this shared media space. There is new forms of power within networked communities, and the last weekend did help you to gain better understanding the interaction between networks and hiearchies.

Jay Rosen: “I have been an observer and critic of the American press for 19 years. In that stretch there has never been a time so unsettled. More is up for grabs than has ever been up for grabs since I started my watch.”